Monday, June 30, 2014

Global Land Surface Databank: Version 1.0.0 Release

The International Surface Temperature Initiative is pleased to release version 1 of a new monthly dataset that brings together new
and existing sources of surface air temperature. Users are provided a way to more
completely track the origin of surface air temperature data from its earliest
available source through its integration into a merged data holding. The data
are provided in various stages that lead to the integrated product. This release is the culmination of three years effort by an
international group of scientists to produce a truly comprehensive, open and
transparent set of fundamental monthly data holdings. The databank has been previously available in beta form, giving the public a chance to provide feedback. We have received numerous comments and have updated many of our sources. This release consists of:

Over 50 distinct sources, submitted to the databank to date in Stage 0 (hardcopy / image; where
available), Stage 1 (native digital format), and Stage 2 (converted to common
format and with provenance flags).

All code to convert the Stage 1 holdings to Stage 2.

A recommended merged product and several
variants which have all been built off the Stage 2 holdings. 2 ASCII formats are provided (ISTI format, GHCN format), along with a CF Compliant netCDF format.

All code used to process the data merge, along with statistical auxiliary files.

Documentation necessary to understand at a high
level the processing of the data, including the location of the manuscript published in Geoscience Data Journal.

The entire databank can be found here and the merged product is located here. Earlier betas are also found here. Because the databank is version controlled, we welcome any feedback. We will be providing updates on the blog regarding any new releases.